Steaming means that when you hit their burning skin/hair with water to put out the fire, the water turns to steam and burns them more. It is the reason you won't see a firefighter spraying water on a burning animal to put out the fire, and it is tough to see. That's why I turn away--I cannot bear to watch it. The first time I saw animals on fire (armadilloes and possums), I begged the firefighters to spray water on them to put them out, and they said "Can't do it. It will kill them." I think they probably died anyway though. There is nothing near me. Are you kidding? Even a trip into Marietta takes 30 minutes round trip and that's just if you're popping into a gas station convenience store for a cold drink. Other than whatever is in Marietta (which in terms of shopping is not much), we have to drive 30 miles north or south to reach any decent shopping destination,and by decent I mean something like Wal-Mart. That sounds like a long way, but when we first moved here we had to drive 50-60 miles to get to a Lowe's or Home Depot. We also had NO cell service within 2 or 3 miles of our house, and no internet service. We had to buy a DirectPC satellite dish to have the internet. Our then-15-year-old son thought we had moved to a foreign planet. Eventually cell phone service moved closer to us. At one point we had cell service if standing down in the road 300' from the house, then eventually we had cell service in the living room of the house but no farther, and then finally anywhere in the house, but not north or west of the house. Now we have cell service everywhere on our property. See how we're moving on up to the big time? Eventually we had dial-up internet but it was painfully slow after having had DirctPC. However, it only cost maybe 1/3rd as much. Now we have (hallelujah!) wireless internet. You still lose all cell service when you get pretty far out west in our county, although a new cell tower was supposed to solve that. I haven't been out west since it went up, but someone who has been out that way said it was not the solution they said it would be. Once you get far west in our county, even the fire/police radio reception can be spotty, and I don't like that. Don't get me wrong. When we moved here we knew it was very rural and very remote, but the lack of cell service and internet service was a little surprising. Because we're in a lowlying area, Channel 12 was the only tv channel, period, that we could pick up and that was spotty and with a big antenna. So, we got DirecTV and still have it. Sometimes you have to give up some modern conveniences in order to live way out in the sticks. I am grateful every day for internet shopping and UPS. It is so much easier to order stuff and have it delivered than to drive 90 or 100 miles one way looking for it. The nearest Baskin-Robbins I can think of, by the way, is in Denton, TX, and I am not even sure if it is still there. There's a Braum's in both Ardmore and Gainesville but both are sort of off the beaten path and we rarely go there. During the dry months we leave Love County as little as possible because there's nothing worse than being 30 miles from home when the fire pager goes off. It makes Tim crazy and it is hard to get him to patiently wait while I finish the grocery shopping, for example, before we head back home. The fire either will still be burning when he gets there, or it won't, is my attitude. A couple of years ago we were in Lewisville shopping for a new treadmill and started getting phone calls and text messages urging us to hurry home because there was a big wildfire. We did. By the time we reached Denton, TX, we could see the smoke plume from the fire in western Love County, but we kept thinking it must be from a closer fire in Cooke or Montague County. We probably were already between Sanger and Gainesville before we realized that the smoke plume we'd been seeing since we were east of Denton was from our fire. That was a fire that took several days and all the departments in our county to extinguish it fully. In the summer or winter fire season, any time we leave home, we have a 'to do' list and hurry, hurry, hurry to do it and get back home. To me, it is a thrill to get to spend 4 hours in Denton without rushing back, but that only happens a couple of times a year. We'll eat lunch at a real restaurant, walk around the mall, maybe browse the bookstore. It is like a vacation, albeit a brief one. I am not complaining, either. One day of dealing with traffic and crowds in the D-FW metroplex and I'm ready to stay home for the next month. I love living in the country for many reasons, but shopping convenience is not one of them. Dawn

I have All-Clad--before that had the 'old' farberware with the black handles. Give the new set a shot. I don't find the handles usually get too hot to handle most of the time--and you can always use a potholder. But being able to put your pots and pans in the oven is a fantastic advantage. So nice to be able to start something on top of the range, then just pop it into the oven to finish (and no to have to dirty 2 pans to do it). I bet within 3 months, if you keep the pans, you'll wonder how you got along without them before.

There are several thermostats attached to the dryer vening. One is the overtemp, one is the working temp. Some have dual thermostate for lower cycles, other dryers use the timer. You probably have a bad thermostat.

dcarch - No. There are a couple of "hot" brisket suppliers around these days. I don't know the names off the top of my head. I get mine from Penn Dutch in Margate, FL. Here's an interesting story... About 10 years ago, we invited Paul Kirk to come down here and run a barbecue cooking school. I tied in a Certified Barbecue Judging class with it that was to start around 3 hours later, so that the judges could sample what these newly-trained cooks prepared. I got there very early and joined the cooks as they selected their meat for the class. Paul Kirk laid out 10 different briskets and asked each cook and me to select what they thought the best one was for a competition. Each cook poked and smelled and squeezed the briskets. I was the last one in line and the only one to look at the label. Paul asked for my selection and I pointed to the one with the cheapest price. Mine was the right answer, according to barbecue professor. With the long cooking process, it really didn't matter whether it was Certified Angus, Kobe, or just some unknown brand. Like I've been preaching all along: it's a cheap cut of beef that you're going to cook for many hours. In the end, it will taste as good as your rub, your smoke, and your sauce.